How to get FTC sponsors

Start with who already knows you

Cold outreach to a company with no connection to your school converts at close to zero. The list that works, in order:

1. Parents' employers — many run matching-gift or community programs nobody applies to.
2. Local businesses your families already spend money at. The dentist, the hardware store, the car dealership.
3. Engineering firms and manufacturers within about twenty miles. They hire from the pipeline you are in.
4. Companies that already sponsor other FIRST teams in your region — they have decided this is a thing they fund.
5. Your school district, PTO or booster club, which may have money set aside that nobody claimed.
6. Grant programs from FIRST itself and its national sponsors.

Ask for a number

The single biggest cause of an unanswered letter is not naming an amount. "Any support would help" hands the decision back to the sponsor, who then has to invent a number, decide whether it is embarrassing, and reply. Most of them do not.

Name it. Tie it to something: "$1,000 covers our second event registration and the spare parts budget for the season." A sponsor giving $1,000 to a line item feels different from one giving $1,000 to a vibe. The sponsorship letter template is built around that ask, and the budget template is where the number comes from.

Know what they get, and be honest about it

A small business is not buying advertising — your logo on a robot will be seen by a few hundred people. They are buying a connection to local students doing something worth supporting, and a story they can tell. Say that plainly rather than inflating impressions nobody believes.

A large company with a community-giving budget is different: they need a receipt, an EIN, and a form filled in correctly. If you can accept tax-deductible donations — through a school foundation, a booster club or a fiscal sponsor — say so in the first paragraph. It changes what is possible.

Build tiers, then stop over-promising

Tiers work because they turn "how much?" into "which one?". Keep them to four or five, make the top one genuinely worth the money, and only promise what you will definitely deliver. A logo you never print is worse than a tier you never offered.

The follow-up is where the money is

Most teams send one email and conclude that sponsorship does not work. Most yeses arrive after the second contact. Wait about ten days, then follow up once — short, friendly, restating the ask. If nothing comes back, move on and try again next season; circumstances change.

Offer to visit. A robot demo in a company lobby closes at a rate no letter matches, and it costs you an afternoon.

Keeping a sponsor is easier than finding one

The second year of a sponsorship should be a formality, and it usually is not, because the team went quiet after the cheque cleared.

• Acknowledge the gift within a week, with a receipt if you can issue one.
• Send one mid-season update with a photo of the robot and one sentence about what their money bought.
• Send the season result — win or lose. Sponsors like being told the ending.
• Put the logo where you promised, at the size you promised, and send a picture of it.
• Ask again in the spring, before they set next year's budget rather than after.

Track it somewhere that survives graduation

The most common way a team loses a sponsor is that the student who managed the relationship graduated and the contact went with them. Keep the sponsor list, the amounts, the contacts and the dates somewhere the whole team can see — the toolkit does this — so next year's treasurer inherits a list instead of a rumour.